


Boundless

by l_cloudy



Category: Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-14 09:33:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13587273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/l_cloudy/pseuds/l_cloudy
Summary: For as long as he could remember, Kaladin had longed for the skies.





	Boundless

**Author's Note:**

  * For [freoduweard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/freoduweard/gifts).



> Happy Chocolate Box freoduweard! This was one truly wonderful prompt.

For as long as he could remember, Kaladin had longed for the skies.

Most people in Hearthstone were Landed. Only the citylord’s family and a few of their higher-ranked attendants had wings: Laral’s were beautiful, cream-coloured and thick with feathers. After their new lord had arrived from the capital, Roshone’s petty cruelty and his treatment of Kaladin’s family taught him to hate all Winged, who took and took and never cared, but part of him had kept secretly wishing he could have known what it felt like to leave the ground. Rillir Roshone was an idle city courtier and an idiot by all accounts, but Kaladin saw him, sometimes, rise above the modest houses and open fields, and envied him until the day he died.

Standing in front of Amaram, Shardblade in hand, Kaladin thought: if I take this, I will grow wings. Shardbearers killed indiscriminately, cutting down defenceless Landed from the open air, and Kaladin did not wish to take to the skies only so that he could kill. And yet, giving up the Blade was the hardest thing he’d ever done.

Stormlight, he came to learn, was nothing like wings: it was  _better_. It let him fly higher, longer, faster, as though all those self-important Winged with their Shardblades and their armies were nothing but toddlers, just learning how to walk while Kaladin speed past on a sprint. The skies were his. The winds were his. He didn’t need wings for any of that.

He didn’t need wings but he received them nevertheless: they came with his third oath, larger than any Kaladin had ever seen, a blinding white with the feather tips tinged blue. They made it unexpectedly hard to roll around in bed or do simple things like wear a uniform coat, and he was supposed to learn how to take care of the feathers even though he couldn’t feel them, not like he felt his skin, or touch them by hand.

“I can help,” Adolin offered, and Kaladin felt his face redden with heat at his limitations – that he would need help at all, that he would need to turn to Adolin Kholin of all people, that he showed his ignorance in something Adolin, a Winged, had been born with.

But – well. It wasn’t as though he had many Winged acquaintances he could ask for instruction. There was Shallan, who would probably delight in lording her knowledge over him, and Zahel who was too caustic for even Kaladin to stand. He wasn’t about to seek out Dalinar.

And so. Adolin’s touch, Adolin’s hands. He couldn’t  _feel_  with his feathers, not properly, but there were gentle tugs, the slide of Adolin’s fingers across the new band of muscles on his shoulder blades, Adolin encircling his wrist, showing Kaladin how to gently clean the downy feathers.

Adolin was a very efficient teacher. They were finished rather quickly, but he didn’t let go of Kaladin’s hand even after they were done.

“Could you,” said Adolin. “My wings, I mean – it’s easier, when somebody helps. If you wanted.”

He was flushed, too. Kaladin looked from Adolin’s face to their joined hands. “Me,” he said. “I’d mess up all your pretty feathers terribly, princeling.”

“Probably,” Adolin admitted. He smiled an unconscious little smile. “But I’d forgive you, later, if you took me flying.”

**Author's Note:**

> [[tumblr](http://liesmyth.tumblr.com)]


End file.
